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As a followup to the VK/NA S2S event on 13th January UTC, Kevin AC2KL proposed a simultaneous activation event for Japan and North American SOTA stations. The timing was set for Sunday morning 23rd April in Japan and Saturday night in NA. With almost two months notice operators had plenty of time to plan their activations.

Australia is in a very similar time zone to Japan so the prospect of joining in with the event and making some summit-to-summit contacts was more than enticing. It would mean an early start so I organised a stay nearby to an easy drive-up summit allowing maximum operating time.

Mt Elliot

Mt Elliot, VK2/HU-093 is the summit I activate every year for New Year and the most convenient for the event. Arriving at the summit just after dawn it was a cool, clear and sunny day. Rather than operating at the usual spot I scouted around for a better location further away from the roadside power lines. RF noise on the summit is generally pretty low, but it would be critical to minimise QRM in order to work the weaker DX stations. The actual activation zone is huge. Upon checking out the lookout platform there did not seem enough room to string the antenna, a 28m long ZS6BKW horizontal inverted-Vee. Another location was found further back where there was a table and a fence post for attaching the squid pole. This was about 20m further away from the power lines than the usual table.

Antennas

As well as the ZS6BKW I wanted to use my 20m quarter wave ground plane because of its lower angle of radiation. Using a single 9m squid pole allows both antennas to be supported. An egg insulator near the top of the squid pole with a rope through it is used to raise and lower the ground plane. The squid pole was lashed to a fence post about 4m from the table. The ground plane was set up with four elevated radials but was not exactly vertical as I only had a 2m run of coax to go from the base to the table. The ZS6BKW was set up to be broadside to NA.

Operating position at Mt Elliot VK2/HU-093

The station consisted of a KX3 transceiver, KL-405 linear amplifier and a two-way antennas switch. The KX3 has an in-built antenna matcher so can be used on any band. The linear would only be useable on 40m, 20m and 17m where there is a good impedance match with the antennas. Only 1-2 Watts input is needed to drive the linear to full output of 50-60 Watts. It also has a receive pre-amp that can be useful for very weak signals.

Logging

To make this activation more interesting, I decided to do my logging electronically rather than on a paper log. This would be done using VK Port-a-log on the mobile phone, an application that I use religiously for spotting but have thus far ignored the logging side. This would be the trial run for the rest of my week long activating trip.

Activating

Once the station was set up the spots on SOTAwatch were checked through looking especially for NA SOTA stations. There were no audible ones so the JA stations were investigated. First summit-to-summit contact was with Hayashi JA4RQO on 15m and reports of 519 sent and 319 received. With the antenna favouring NA there was no expectation of big signals from Japan. Next S2S was on 17m with Takeshi JS1UEH and reports of 419 sent and 339 received.

Moved up the 17m band and put out a spot and started calling CQ. Rather elated when I heard Peter WA7JTM call back from Summit Mountain W7A/CS-026 in Arizona with a 449 report and I gave him 319. The power output was only 12 Watts at this stage. That surprise call was followed up with two more NA calls – both home stations: Tom NQ7R in Arizona and Larry K0RS in Colorado. These stations were also S1 so I was amazed they could hear me.

At that point the calls dried up so I started scooting around the bands checking for other SOTA activators. I worked Toru JH0CJH on 15m with 319 sent and then Jun JI1IHV on 17m with 419 sent. Signals were certainly pretty consistent. Received reports were between S1 and S3. Then I put out a spot on 20m and started calling but there were no responses at all. I noticed that the noise level was slightly elevated on 20m compared to the higher bands so there was a chance someone heard me and called but was lost in the noise.

Antennas and shack at Mt Elliot VK2/HU-093

It was time to give 15m a try so I spotted there and started calling. First in the log (again) was Peter WA7JTM for another S2S on a different band. Thanks Peter! Signal reports on both bands were pretty similar. That was followed by two more S2S calls from Japan: Minoru JL1NIE and Gen JS1IFK. When the calls dried up again I started chasing.

John ZL1BYZ was easy to work for the first ZL S2S on 17m and then Katsu JP3DGT and JG1GPY. Then the first of the VK activators came on. It was Andrew VK1AD at Bobbara Mtn VK2/ST-044 about 300km away and I worked him on 40m SSB. He had actually been on the higher bands for nearly an hour but I only had a very, very weak copy on him on 17m SSB so it was not QSO quality.

It was 2330z or 9:30am local and I had 11 S2S in the log so put up a posting on the facebook SOTA group in the hope of attracting some more chasers. Before UTC rollover I chased Peter VK3PF on 40m at VK4/SE-045. At that point I remembered I had brought the linear so plugged it in to work Charlie NJ7V at Humboldt Mountain W7A/AW-040 for another Arizona S2S on 17m. Signals were hanging in there at S1. In the final minute of UTC Saturday worked Wade VK1FWBD at Mt Gibraltar VK2/IL-001 on 40m SSB.

UTC Rollover

Just after UTC rollover I worked Andrew VK1AD, Wade VK1FWBD and Peter VK3PF for second S2S contacts plus some chasers on 40m SSB. Then spotted back on 17m and worked some chasers as well as Yukio JF1NDT, then chased Steve JS6TMW on 15m for his first JA-VK S2S. Some more VK activators were on air so worked Tony VK3CAT an Allen VK3ARH at Big Hill VK3/VE-059. They were on a two day hiking tour through a few summits.

Spotted again on 15m and yielded two chasers: VK6NU and JA1VRY. The DX had dried up so it was time to get to 40m and work the locals. Spotting for CW yielded 5 chasers and a S2S from Ian VK5CZ at Tothill Range VK5/SE-010. Strangely there was an SSB station calling me on the CW frequency which turned out to be an S2S from Nick VK3ANL on Mt Torbreck VK3/VN-001. Sometimes we call using CW within the SSB passband so this was quite unusual.

CW contacts had dried up so I spotted on 40m SSB and worked 12 chasers. It was packup time and just as I started there was a spot from Warren ZL2AJ at Hikurangi ZL1/MW-105 on 20m SSB. His signal was weak so I used the linear and he was the last contact and S2S for the day.

QRT

It was certainly a very successful activation with more DX S2S than I could have dreamed of. There were 25 S2S contacts including 3 NA, 9 JA, 2 ZL and 11 VK. The best band for DX was 17m with 15m coming second. 20m was pretty useless. I did compare the 20m ground plane with the ZS6BKW and found that in some cases the ground plane yielded stronger received signals. A more useful test would have been if I had one for the 17m band so it could be worth adding links into the ground plane to make it multi-band. The logging went pretty smoothly once I became familiar with a few idiocyncracies. I found I could click on a spot and have the information appear in the logging window which saved having to type in callsigns and summit references. All 55 contacts were successfully recorded and only minor editing was needed after the event. This would bode well for the rest of the trip. Time on summit was just under 5 hours.

Thank you to all the other activators, the chasers and Kevin AC2KL for initiating the event. I hope to participate in another one just like it!

The start of the New Year brings with it the opportunity to revisit summits that had been activated the previous year and gain points from them again. For the changeover to 2015 there were many SOTA activations planned, and with the prospect of so many contacts possible, I joined the throng. For the festive season I was already holidaying with family on the NSW Central Coast and with easy access to Mt Elliot VK2/HU-093 decided to reactivate this summit for the third time for the year rollover. Mt Elliot is a few km NE of Gosford and about 70km N of Sydney.

Setup

Antenna and operating point

My last activation of Mt Elliot was in July 2014 and I set up at the same location on the picnic table after doing the walk out of the activation zone along the Graves Walk. I used the 10m squid pole allowing my recently constructed ZS6BKW doublet antenna to be raised to nearly 9m. I have used this antenna on my last 4 activations and it is currently my favourite. For this activation I was aiming to work Compton VK2HRX on VK2/CT-012 on 6m as well as the many activators in VK3 on 40m and some in VK6 on 20m/15m. Compton’s summit was virtually due west from Mt Elliot so I figured orienting the antenna broadside to the south-west would give me the coverage I was looking for. Due to the 28m length of this antenna, the pattern on 6m has many lobes. The evening before I had visited the summit to assess the operating location and direction of the antenna and also the 2m repeaters that were in range.

Everything went to plan. My alert time of 2300z was matched by the first contact at 2259z. There had been many alerts posted on SOTAwatch nominating a 2300z kick-off time with a few posted for half an hour earlier. A few spots had appeared by the time I got started so it was time to hunt for these other summit operators in the hope of catching them all before the UTC rollover. There wasn’t a moment to lose!

Most of my activations I try to start on CW to qualify it and then shift to SSB. Today’s strategy was different – work as many summits as possible regardless of mode. I started going through all the spots on SOTAwatch on 40m SSB. Propagation on 40m was good as I was easily able to work Paul VK5PAS on Mt Bryan VK5/SW-001 over a 1100km path and I was getting into southern VK3 as well. It would turn out to be a good day on the bands.

6m S2S

Within 15 minutes a spot appeared from Compton on 6m so I switched bands and turned up the volume expecting a weak signal over the 111km path. His call jumped out of the speaker and he was a good 5×3. Then I heard Andrew VK1NAM calling from Mt Tumanang VK2/SM-049, a distance of 315km and gave him a 5×2 report. The band was really buzzing. Unfortunately Andrew and Compton couldn’t hear each other, but these contacts were a real highlight for me. Next I wanted to do some CW on 40m. I tried to spot on 7030 kHz as Wayne VK3WAM was busy operating on my alerted frequency of 7032. RRT brought up an error on each attempt even though I had good mobile coverage, however I made three CW contacts without even spotting. By then it had ticked past 2330z so it was back to SSB to work more of the summits that had been spotted. Then another attempt to spot on 7075 kHz SSB but no joy. After several calls and no response I went back to hunting. I was lucky enough to be able to hear Justin VK7TW on Mt Marian VK7/SC-003 on 40m over an 1100km path. Shortly afterwards he was in the log with 3×3 received and 4×2 sent. Conditions were still holding. My last contact for 2014 was with Bob VK5FO on Mt Gawler VK5/SE-013 with 5×5 exchanged both ways. At that stage I had made 20 contacts with all but 2 being S2S. That seems a lot but there were many that I missed.

Rollover to 2015

My first contact for 2015 was with Paul VK5PAS so I certainly couldn’t complain about the conditions. Propagation on 40m was more like it is in winter yet I was basking under clear skies in the middle of summer with temps around 29 degrees. Contacts were being made into locations that are normally off the radar this far north in VK2. VK3EQ came up portable on Mt Wellington in Tasmania VK7/SC-001 for another 1100km path contact. After a bunch of S2S contacts I worked Andrew VK3BQ and he kindly put up a spot for me on 7135 kHz which led to a run of contacts with both summits and chasers. After 20 mins I switched to CW and 7032 was clear so I started calling. The Reverse Beacon Network skimmer at VK4CT heard and spotted me and then a bunch of CW contacts followed. After it went quiet I started looking for another way to spot on my mobile. I found the SOTA Spotter app and managed to get a spot out for 20m CW. This became my spotting app for the rest of the activation. The only disadvantage with it is that all fields are cleared when the spotting page is selected so everything has to be entered from scratch each time. The very big advantage is that the spots get through! (NB: I have since managed to send a spot with RRT)

Getting on for 2 hours after UTC rollover things had quietened down a lot, but there were still enough new activations to keep up the excitement level. Some of the pre-rollover activators were still on their peaks, but a lot had moved on. Anthony VK6MAC had a spot up for 28.510 but I heard nothing from him. I put up a spot on 15m SSB and within minutes Anthony called me for a S2S from Mt Dale VK6/SW-036. He may have been running 100W as he was 5×4 and I received 5×3. He then spotted himself just up the band and I expect made many more contacts. 15m would have been the band of choice for VK2 to VK6 contacts although I didn’t make any more. Later on I did work Nigel VK6NI and Mike VK6MB on 20m, but only received 4×1 reports.

Shack shift

Station on Mt Elliot picnic table

The sun was now streaming down on the picnic table and the radio was getting very hot, not to mention the operator. There was still shade in the grass nearby so I shifted the station down to there. The ribbon cable is a few metres longer than the squid pole so that restricts where one can set up, but that turned out to not be a problem. There was plenty of length so I diverted the slack through a short tree nearby to prevent it from dragging on the ground. I would have to lie on the ground myself for a while, but at least the radio was happier even if I was a bit less comfortable.

6m DX

Hoping for a repeat 6m contact I sent a message to Compton VK2HRX, but unfortunately he had already packed up. I spotted myself on 52.200 but did not attract any chasers so went down to the bottom of the band. On 50.110 I heard Murray ZL3MH calling from Christchurch so went back to him and we shifted to 50.130 for a chat. Bedlam ensued as then many ZLs started calling me, unable to hear each other. I made three contacts into ZL with the best report being from Dave ZL1AKW of 5×7. I now have a better understanding why they call 6m the “magic band”. There were many more contacts possible, but more spots had appeared so I was keen to get back to chasing summit-to-summits on the DC bands. A whole bunch of 40m S2S contacts followed. Another contact was made with Justin VK7TW this time on Trestle Mountain VK7/SC-004. The QRN had come up so there was a storm happening somewhere, but even so the contact was reasonably comfortable.

Home on 7090

I found 7090 kHz was clear so decided to spot there and work anyone who had missed me on 7135 3 hours before. That brought 6 more contacts including some S2Ss. Andrew VK1NAM and Andrew VK1DA had shifted to Mt Cowangerong VK2/ST-001 for their second summit of the day. I would have been up for another try on 6m but it was early afternoon and likely to be poor conditions. I had listened for them and called them after rollover on their previous summit and not heard anything.

30m + 20m + 17m

Operating point on the ground

From then on the S2S contacts kept coming about every 10 mins so I stayed on the peak. At 0500z (3pm) it got a lot quieter so I spotted myself on 30m SSB and logged some more chasers, mainly from VK3 but also worked Stephen VK2RH who was staying nearby. After that I tried 20m SSB and worked VK6NI and VK6MB mentioned earlier. Finally I decided to give 17m SSB a try but there was no response to my calls on that band. By then I had run out of VK6 chasers I reckon.

Wayne VK3WAM had put up an alert for Mt Gordon VK3/VN-027 so I decided I would wait until he appeared before packing up. The weather was still nice and I hadn’t run out of water plus it would be great to get another CW S2S in the log. I had already worked Wayne 3 times on 2 different summits, so good to collect the whole set, so to speak. In the meantime I was content to tune around the bands and listen to some QSOs. True to form Wayne appeared a bit after his alerted time and an easy CW contact on 40m followed. I had been calling CQ on 7032 CW without spotting and Wayne suddenly replied. Great!

Close down

10 mins later I was thinking of packing up and a spot came up from Rob VK2QR and Brian VK3MCD on VK2/SM-036, an unnamed 10 point summit. I was in luck! I worked them both with good reports to end the activation. I packed up everything and then just about to head for the car when another spot appeared. It was Tim VK3MTB on Mt Hoddle VK3/VT-076. It was an easy decision not to set up again for a S2S. I strolled to the car and worked him as a chaser, the last chaser contact for the day.

That was the end of my epic activation of Mt Elliot. Some stats for the curious:

Bands used: 40m, 30m, 20m, 17m, 15m, 6m

Transmit power used: 12W for first 4 hrs then 10W

Modes used: SSB, CW @ 12-15wpm

Contacts before rollover: 20

Summit-to-summit contacts before rollover: 18

Contacts after rollover: 72

Summit-to-summit contacts after rollover: 47

Total summit-to-summit points: 359

Areas worked: VK1,VK2,VK3,VK4,VK5,VK6,VK7,ZL1,ZL2,ZL3

Activation duration: 8hrs 14mins

Activation points: 1

With the number of S2S points collected, I reached 1000 S2S points so am now a S2S sloth – yippee! My contact with Tony VK3CAT on Mt Mitchell VK3/VN-012 at 0021z took me over the 1000 points. What a fun day at the ‘office’. The ZS6BKW doublet antenna had performed better than expected and the 4200 mAh LiFe battery had lasted the distance.

Thanks to all the chasers and other activators for making this the most successful, frenetic SOTA outing for me so far.

SOTA activations for me have involved lugging a 40L backpack crammed with gear plus carrying a 10m squid pole. Recently I have become interested in trying to reduce the size and weight of equipment taken to a summit as well as reducing the time between arrival and getting on air. I had built a new 20m ground plane antenna and obtained a 5.4m squid pole and was itching to try these out on a summit. In the SOTAwatch alerts list there were some simultaneous activations coming up around lunchtime so it was time to throw my hat into the ring.

Mt Elliot

I was staying nearby to Mt Elliot which is a short distance northeast of Gosford on the NSW Central Coast. At the end of 2013 I had activated this summit, a one pointer, and scored loads of summit-to-summit contacts. When I left for the summit, one of the activators I hoped to work, Russ VK2BJP was already on the air. Being familiar with Mt Elliot made for a quick setup time. Still, I had to pack, drive to the summit, do the walk out and back into the activation zone along the Graves Walk and get set up. There was no time to waste!

Gear

Antennas: 20m ground plane and Diamond RHM8B base & whip

For this activation, I took the small backpack with just the radio, antennas and notebook. I wanted to try the Elecraft KX3’s internal NiMH batteries to see how they would hold up in a typical activation. The 2.2kg SLA battery was being left behind. The antennas I took along were:

Operation would mainly be on 20m and 40m. For 20m I had the ground plane. For 40m I could use the loaded vertical as a compromise antenna, or extend it by using the radiator from the 20m ground plane.

On Air

It was a race against time to catch Russ on VK3/VE-149 so I quickly set up the loaded vertical. His spot had gone out at 0207z and I made my first contact with him at 0241z. It would have been faster if I’d had the SOTA bag already packed! I was rewarded with a 5×6 signal report – not too shabby over a 500km path on 40m using a 1.78m long ‘Cute’ antenna!

“Small backpack” SOTA station on Mt Elliot

I had time to set up a better radiator before the next potential summit-to-summit contact. The 5.1m radiator for 20m was launched up the 5.4m squid pole. It was a bit long as the radio was sitting on a bench about 1.2m off the ground. I let the extra wire just droop down and lie on the bench. Pretty soon after I got it tuned up, Phil VK2JDL came up on Knights Hill VK2/IL-007 150km away and gave me S4. He was received at an S point weaker than Russ which I put down to the lower angle of radiation characteristic of verticals.

Matt VK2DAG came up and spotted me and then I was off with some contacts into VK3 on 40m. There were no pileups – it was a weekday, but the gear seemed to be going the distance. Only 5W output instead of the 10W or 12W that I’m used to when using an external battery. To conserve the internal batteries I had switched off the LCD backlight and the RF preamp when not actually giving signal reports. This reduces current consumption from 205mA to 171mA when receiving. On transmit I ran it at the maximum power for the supply voltage (5W) and even had a small amount of speech compression for that extra punch – as per usual.

20m ground plane

It was time to try out the 20m ground plane for the first time. The Diamond loaded vertical was unscrewed from the radio and the 5.1m radiator plugged in directly. With the KX3’s internal ATU bypassed, the antenna matched at the top end of the 20m band. The droopy wire had been wrapped around the squid pole. A good contact was made with Nev VK5WG and then a spot for David VK3IL on Mt Hotham came up. It was for 40m so I tried to match the 20m ground plane using the KX3’s internal matcher, but there was no match. The contact was made after putting the loaded vertical back inline and I received an S3 report over the 550km path on 40m.

Back to 20m again and after spotting on a different frequency there were 3 more contacts including Mike VK6MB and John VK6NU. On SOTAwatch I had read that Mike wasn’t able to reach Phil VK2JDL. Maybe my ground plane was the secret weapon!

30m

All possible contacts had been made on 20m so I decided to try 30m. The setup was changed over to the same as for 40m but with less loading. I used 41mm of the RHM8B loading coil instead of 92mm and got a good match. When setting up on a new frequency I bypass the KX3’s matcher and normally achieve less than 2:1 VSWR just by adjusting the length of the coil. After re-enabling the matcher a 1:1 VSWR is usually achieved. This applies on both 40m and 30m.

Operating on 30m with RHM8B and 5.1m wire

On 30m I made contact with Ron VK3AFW in Melbourne with good reports. Not many chasers but I was happy that the vertical was working well on this band too.

Another S2S – “just”

Phil VK2JDL had put up an alert for a second activation so I decided to wait it out. I had run out of chasers but my batteries were still going. I listened around the bands mainly on 40m. I experimented with loading up the antenna on 80m but the radio promptly shut down due to low voltage. I knew there wasn’t too much juice left. Reducing the power to 1W I was able to try again but could not achieve a match, probably due to insufficient inductance. It would probably work with a quarter wave radiator for 40m.

At 45 mins past Phil’s alerted time and with low batteries I decided to start packing up. I didn’t get very far before Phil’s call came through on 7090 kHz from Mt Kembla 130km away. What a relief – Phil had made it and I still had enough battery to make contact. My power was down to 1W and the radio shut down twice during the contact due to low voltage. Still managed a 5×4 report though and bagged a couple more summit-to-summit points making 22 for the day. Happy!

During the activation, Harry VK2GE popped up for a contact. He is a local not used to hearing such strong signals on 20m. I dropped down to 1W and was still over S9. It turns out that he resides very close to where I was staying and he invited me over. After finishing the activation I popped in for an eyeball contact. He showed me his setup with a 20m inverted Vee on an 8m squid pole. I gave him some information about SOTA – I’m sure it was his first SOTA contact. Where he lives is about 100m from the “quiet RF spot” I often drive to in order to work those weaker SOTA stations – what a coincidence! Anyway, watch out for Harry on 20m – a new potential chaser.